Roses also topped my Great British Flower Poll 2018, knocking Hycacinthoides non-scripta (Bluebells) and Paeonia (Peonies) off the top spot, with a whopping 15 per cent of the vote to crown them best British flower. So, I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk more about roses, their fascinating history and their impressively diverse modern varieties.

Rose history

They first appeared on Earth around 35 million years ago when now-extinct pre-historic creatures, such as Synapsids and Cynodonts, still walked the planet.

Their long period of evolution has resulted in a huge variety of related plants, with everything from peaches, strawberries and cherries, to apples, almonds and ornamental garden roses (Rosa) belonging to the rose family.

The Tudor rose has also been a symbol of England since the 15th century Wars of the Roses, in which two royal houses battled for the throne.

The wars ended when Henry Tudor defeated the House of York, to become King Henry VII of England, cementing his claim to the throne by marrying Elizabeth of York and uniting the two warring houses.

Since the House of Lancaster’s emblem was a red rose (Rosa gallica officinalis) and the House of York’s a white rose (Rosa x Alba), the Tudor rose brings the two together with a ring of red petals encircling a white centre, representing unification of the two dynasties.

This hybrid red and white rose is emblazoned on buildings throughout England to this day, one of which is Hampton Court Palace, home to the famous flower show!

Rose cultivation

Wild roses typically have five petals, but over the course of time, humans have interbred species with one another to produce a vast array of roses with a huge variety of petal numbers, flower shapes, foliage and hip variations, and flower colours (including bi-colour and stripy blooms).

In the 1500s, English rose varieties (like Rosa gallica officinalis and Rosa x Alba) were limited, with beautiful flowers, but short once-a-year flowering seasons and few colour variations. This all changed in the 1700s when foreign roses began to arrive by the bucket-load from Europe and Asia and be intermixed with English cultivars.

From this point on, roses were selectively bred to combine the best features of different varieties into one bush.

The repeat flowering habit of China Roses, such as ‘Slater’s Crimson China,’ was combined with the dainty flowers-to-die-for and delicate fragrance of Tea Roses, like ‘Hume’s Blush Tea-scented China,’ and these properties were, in turn, combined with the frost hardiness and double-flowers of our native British varieties.

Hybrid Tea roses

They have a high centre formed of a tight cone of inner petals, with abundant layers of petals opening out from the flower’s central core.

They are well-fragranced, come in a bewildering array of colours and their blooms appear in several distinct flushes throughout summer and autumn.

A beautiful Hybrid Tea with fantastically fragranced, large and abundant romantic red blooms is the ‘Alec’s Red’ variety.

Another incredible rose of this type is the award-winning ‘Double Delight,’ which has large, deliciously-scented bi-colour red and white flowers that do an excellent job of approximating the Tudor Rose in reality!

Floribunda roses

While they are not quite up to Hybrid Teas in flower aesthetics, size and fragrance, their flowers appear in large trusses and are continually present on the bush throughout the season—a characteristic that they get from the Polyantha parent variety.

Since they are hardier and more tolerant of wet conditions than their more delicate Hybrid Tea cousins, Floribundas are a wonderful choice for providing colour in the garden.

The cup-shaped golden blooms of ‘Amber Queen’ or split-centred elegant pink blossoms of the ‘City of London’ variety are both excellent additions to borders and make for excellent cut flowers.

Grandiflora roses

Grandiflora roses are a further hybrid of Floribunda and Hybrid Tea roses.

As a consequence, they often have more attractive, larger flowers than Floribundas, but are less fussy and produce more buds than Hybrid Teas.

A favourite of mine is the ‘Fragrant Plum’ variety, the showy double blooms of which have a Turkish-delight-pink middle surrounded by petals of deeper Barbie-doll-pink and have strong fruity scent.

If you have rose bushes in your own garden, but are not sure what type they are, take a note of:

Flowering habit – do flowers appear in trusses or singly? Flower size – small, large or medium? And flower shape – high-centred or open? This will help you to determine which category they fall into.

Fact:

In 1998, the miniature rose

‘Overnight Scentsation’

was taken into space!

Years of selective breeding have, of course, also led to patio, climber, miniature, shrub and ground cover roses all being introduced into the Rosa family. You can grow them scrambling up a wall, in containers surrounding your seating area, or tumble them over an archway. Anything goes.

Today, you might say, there is a rose for every occasion.

‘This Morning’ rose

Recent years in the horticultural world have seen a trend away from the traditional rose flower shapes of the Hybrid Teas and their close relatives, towards a more open bloom.

Look at the World Federation of Rose Societies Rose Hall of Fame and you’ll see that the classic rose looks of the winners in the early 2000s, such as ‘Pierre de Ronsard’ and ‘Ingrid Bergman,’ has given way to the Japanese anemone-like flowers of more recent winners, such as ‘Sally Holmes’ and ‘Cocktail.’

The ‘This Morning’ Rose continues this flower fashion, with its sweet unfurled blossoms in a triangulate of colours, from its Mackintosh yellow stamen, to its deep school-sports maroon heart and geisha pink petals.

I selected it from a final array of roses that had made it through the tough checks at Harkness to be considered for the honour of receiving This Morning’s good name. Hugely versatile, the chosen rose can be placed in a pot on the patio, trained up a garden wall or grown as a shrub in a bed or border. Order your ‘This Morning’ rose now and it will arrive in October. This is the ideal time to be planting new roses in your garden, since the soil is still warm, encouraging enough root growth to ensure the plant survives the winter, ready to burst into bloom midsummer next year.

So, there you have it. Roses have been winning the hearts of humankind for centuries and, with the remarkable range of modern day varieties available, they’re sure to keep on winning our hearts for centuries to come.

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David’s company, Domoney Ltd, encompasses a skilled and talented group of horticulture, landscaping and event project management professionals. The team has evolved over a ten year period and with David at its creative core, now produces features and events at prestigious venues and shows both in the UK and further afield.